Where The Sky Begins
by twenty3
Summary: Was Nick really playing dead, or was he making up his mind? This is what happened when Nick was playing dead in Meat Jekyll. He has to make a choice from what he learns, and the decision is anything but easy.
1. Jaded

At the end of the season finale, Nick joked to Ray about being able to play dead good. But what if he wasn't playing dead? Our lives are based on the choices we make, and for Nick, this choice will decide everything for him.

I don't own CSI and got the idea from the book The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. I don't own that either.

* * *

In retrospect, yelling out to someone after hearing gunshots wasn't the brightest thing Nick Stokes had ever done. Actually, it was very high up there with being one of the stupidest things he had ever done. He was merely trying to find out some information from the officer who had gone back to check on Charlie, but had instead alerted the suspect that he was coming back to find out for himself by shouting out. But maybe it didn't even make that big of a difference. Jekyll knew Nick and Langston were both there, that was no secret. And what did Jekyll expect to happen after shooting the officer? Gunshots aren't something that's ignored, especially by CSIs.  
Another thing that surprised Nick was that he had been off the mark when he had shot at Jekyll. Nick was always a very good shot, and he chalked it up to the element of surprise and nerves that made him miss and, as a result, being put in the his current situation.

For whatever reason, Nick thought that being shot would hurt less than it did. He obviously knew that it would be painful, but he didn't think it would be anything like this. The force of the shot knocked him off his feet onto his back. His shoulder blades stung instantly when they impacted the hard floor, but did very little to cushion the following blow his head took. He became instantly dizzy and lightheaded, both from his bleeding wound and from hitting his head. He felt his chest begin to tighten, causing him more discomfort. He tried to yell out to Ray, but there wasn't enough air in his lungs to do so.

The last thing Nick thought about before he passed out was how stupid it was for them to give this guy the courtesy of giving him a nickname like Dr. Jekyll.

* * *

Nick opened his eyes slowly, afraid of what he was going to see. He expected to be on an operating table in a dungeon somewhere, strapped down with barbed wire and staring down at his heart beating out of his sliced open chest. When all he could see was a clear blue sky, Nick should have be relieved, but was even more worried now. His mind jumped to the conclusion that Jekyll had brought him out to the desert and left him to bleed to death. The sun was high overhead, blinding Nick as he looked up. He lifted his left hand to shade his eyes, and upon doing so realized that his shoulder didn't hurt where he had been shot.

Guessing by where the sun was, Nick assumed it was noon time. He had been shot last night. Shouldn't he have bled to death by now?

Nick sat up slowly and dropped his hand back down to his side. He looked down at his shoulder, and couldn't understand what he was seeing. His black deparment issue CSI vest was gone. He was still wearing the same blue button up shirt he had had on last night, and his wound was still there and very visible. But it wasn't bleeding. It should have been, but it wasn't. Nick reached up with his right hand and touched the area around the wound carefully, but it didn't hurt. He raised his left arm above his head and moved his shoulder around in circles, but still no pain.

"It's not going to hurt for a little while."

The soft, delicate voice came out of nowhere, making Nick jump. He looked up quickly, but nothing was in front of him. He whipped his head around in all directions and craned his neck to see where the voice had come from, but saw no evidence of anyone else out there with him. And for the first time, Nick saw where he actually was.

His conclusion of being in the desert was wrong. He was sitting in a field of perfect green grass that smelled freshly cut and that stretched on for what looked like forever. The sky was a deep, brilliant blue with no clouds in sight and was being lit up gorgeously by the sun. The sun was burning bright overhead, right down onto Nick, but he couldn't feel its heat. In fact, he couldn't feel anything. No breeze, no warmth from the sun, not even the grass beneath him. He wasn't hot or cold. As far as he could tell, he wasn't anything.

Nick looked down as he ran his hands over his legs and up his chest. He could feel himself. He could feel that was real, which was relieving. He ran his right hand through his short hair, and it felt softer than anything he had ever felt before. The confusion Nick was feeling outweighed his feelings of fear and anxiety, which is what was causing him to just sit there and wait rather than get up and run away.

"Are you ready to go?"

The voice came back, and even though it was a female voice that was very light and gentle, it still scared Nick. A few seconds after the voice had spoken again, he saw a bright, white light coming towards him. Fast. He instinctively jumped to his feet, ready to run as soon as he decided it was necessary. Just as the light was getting close enough to pose a danger and almost forcing Nick to bolt, the light faded into the shape of a young girl. Nick's fear immediately melted away, and he felt rooted to the spot.

"We have to get going, you have a lot you have to do," the little girl said.

Nick shook his head slowly. "Who are you? Where am I? What do I have to do? What the hell is going on?"

The little girl giggled. "I should have known you were going to have so many questions Nick. That's what makes you a good CSI."

"How do you know who I am?"

The little girl couldn't stop giggling. "That's my job silly. My job is to meet you and explain the rules to you so that you don't mess up. You have to trust me on this one, okay?"

Nick shook his head again. "Trust you on what?"

The little girl extended her hand to Nick and smiled sweetly. "Just come with me, okay? You're going to be late. You don't have that much time ya know. These things have a time limit. The longer it takes, the harder it is to go back."

"Go back where?" Nick asked.

"I'll explain it all to you when we get out of here. You'll know everything you want to know if you come with me, I promise."

Without anymore hesitation, Nick reached out and grabbed the little girls hand. It was warm and small against his cold palm, but he didn't have much time to think about much else before a huge burst of light washed over them quickly. Nick shut his eyes against the blinding light and felt his heart racing in his chest. He felt the little girl pull her hand from his and begin giggling again, so Nick quicky opened his eyes and looked around him.

He was standing with the girl on a beach, facing the ocean. The sun was setting in front of them, making the vast ocean in front of them look like it was on fire. Nick stared at the sun, mesmerized by it's beauty. He watched it side by side with the little girl for a very long time before he spoke.

"It's not moving," he said at last. "Why doesn't it move?"

"She doesn't want it to," the little girl answered as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Nick turned and looked at her, opening his mouth to ask who 'she' was. Before he could, the little girl continued. "This is exactly what she wants. A beautiful, empty beach that's perfectly clean where the sun is always setting. Nothing is as beautiful as a beach at sunset."

Nick looked past the little girl and saw that the beach went on and on until it met with the orange and red sky. He turned the other way and saw that it did the same exact thing. He once again had no idea where he was, never mind how he had gotten there or what he was doing there.

"Who are you?" he asked the little girl again.

She shrugged simply. "I don't know. I don't have a name."

"Why not?"

"I died before I could be named," she answered quietly, still staring out at the sun.

"Oh," Nick managed, unsure of what else to say. "I'm sorry. What happened?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I just showed up at the meadow where you just were and was told that this is my job. To help people, like you. Well, I help the people who help the people like you."

Nick swallowed the lump that was growing in his throat. "Am I dead?"

She shook her head. "No, not yet."

"So I'm going to die?"

She shook her head again. "No, not yet."

Nick couldn't take his eyes off of the little girl. Her dark brown eyes were transfixed on the sun. She never blinked, not even when the wind from the ocean blew her brown hair into her eyes. Her sundress was bright yellow and danced around her in the wind. Her pale little face seemed to be always smiling, even if her lips weren't.

"You get the choose," she added when Nick didn't reply. "It's not going to be easy, remember that. Don't come crying to me when it's not easy."

"When what isn't easy?" Nick inquired.

"Choosing."

"Choosing what?"

The little girl finally turned and looked up at Nick. "Whether to go back or not."

"To go back to..." Nick trailed off, not entirely sure where he could go back to because he didn't know where he was.

"To the restaurant. Where you were shot," the little girl said knowledgeably. "At the end, you get to choose if you go back or stay."

"At the end of what?"

The little girl smiled. "Your lessons."

Nick frowned. "What lessons?"

The little girl sat down in the sand, crossing her legs and plopping her hands in her lap. She looked up at Nick, inviting him to do the same. When he did, she began tracing her fingers through the sand in between them.

"I died before my mommy and daddy ever got to see me," she explained. "I died before I even got to take a breath. So, I got to choose to do this or to do nothing. Nobody got to help me, so I get to help people. Like you."

Nick nodded slowly. "How long have you been doing this?"

She shrugged. "I dunno, time doesn't work here like it normally does. Back at the restaurant, time is frozen. You're on the floor, and Ray's behind the table with Papa and Charlie's behind the wall. Nobody's moving, especially not you. You can be here for days and days of normal time without a second passing back in the restaurant."

"That means I'm dying," Nick said.

She shook her head. "No it doesn't. It means you haven't decided yet. You still get to choose. We all get to choose certain things. I got to choose to do this, and you get to choose whether you go back or not."

Nick didn't know why, but next he asked, "Why don't you choose a name for yourself?"

The little girl tore her eyes away from the sand she was drawing in and looked up at Nick. "What?" she asked.

Nick smiled at the reversal in their roles. For the first time, she was asking him questions. "Pick a name for the people you help to call you. Your parents didn't get to name you, so you should be able to."

The little girl looked down at kept drawing in the sand. "I don't know what to only names I know are of the people I've met here," she said sadly.

Nick looked down at her busy hands moving through the sand, and a smile spread over his lips. "How about Lily?"

The little girl looked up at him. "That's pretty. What made you think of that?"

Nick pointed to what she had drawn in the sand. "That's a Lily, it's a type of flower."

The little girl smiled happily and nodded in agreement. "Okay, that's my name then. Thanks Nick."

Nick laughed lightly. "You're welcome Lily."

"You need to keep some things in mind," Lily said, getting right back to business. "No one else can choose for you. Only you can choose whether or not you go back. And you can't lie. Even if you do, we'll know you're lying. What you say has to match how you feel, no matter what. Okay?"

Nick nodded. "Okay."

"You also need to remember that Ray is back there, by himself, with a dying man and another man with a gun. He needs you. But you can't help him unless that's what you really, truly want. You have to do what you want, not what you think you want. Okay?"

"Okay," Nick replied with another nod.

Lily smiled. "Good. So what you're going to do is meet with five people that you know. They're the ones who are really going to help you. They're going to teach you your lessons. You can't lie to them, and they can't lie to you. You're helping them as much as they're helping you. But you only get to see them for as long as it takes. You can't go back to see any of them, and you don't get to choose until you're done with all five."

"Are they all dead?"

Lily nodded. "Yes. They are in what they have decided is their heaven. If you choose to stay, you get to stay in what you want to be your heaven."

"Does everybody get to choose like I do?" Nick asked.

Lily shook her head. "No, most people just die and then they meet their five people and then they go to their heaven if they deserve it. But you're different. You don't have to die. You can go back, but only if you want to."

Nick nodded weakly. "Alright."

"The longer you take to decide, the harder it's going to be to want to go back. You're gonna have a million reasons to want to stay here. But if there's just one reason to want to go back, that's enough. One little thing is enough to make you want to go back, and you have to do what you want."

Lily suddenly looked over her shoulder and was smiling widely when she looked back at Nick. "Okay, you understand. She's coming now. After your time with her, she'll send you to the next person and then so on. You'll see me again when you're done with all five, and that's when you decide."

Lily stood up and brushed the sand from her dress. "Don't be scared Nick, they can't hurt you. Not if you don't let them."

And with that Lily turned and began walking into the ocean. She walked into the water and continued until she disappeared into the waves. Nick watched until he couldn't see her anymore before he turned his gaze to where Lily had looked when she had glanced over her shoulder. He saw a shadowy figure making its way towards him.

Nick couldn't help but hold his breath in anticipation for who was coming to help him.


	2. The Tide

Nick stayed sitting on the beach because he didn't trust his legs to hold him up. For a long moment it looked like whoever was coming towards him had stopped moving and was just standing there, staring at him. It made Nick very uneasy to think that they could see him, but he couldn't see them. And then he remembered what Lily had said. That they couldn't hurt him if he didn't let them. He wasn't exactly sure how he could stop it, but he doubted that anyone who was supposed to help him and vice versa would want to cause him any harm. So Nick sat there, taking deep, slow breaths as he awaited the arrival of his first person.

The shadow began to take shape when it was about thirty feet away from Nick. The sun hit the slender woman just right to reveal more than just her outline. Nick waited patiently, even though he didn't need to wait for clarification of seeing the woman's face to know who it was. His gut had known it would be her all along as soon as Lily had said it was a woman. He would recognize the outline of that body anywhere and was able to immediately put a face and a name to it. His breath caught in his throat when his intuitions were proven correct when the woman closed in, only fifteen feet away, and her beautiful tanned face was illuminated by the setting sun. Her dark brown hair was wavy and being tossed about by the wind, and Nick didn't know if his heart was beating too fast to feel or not at all.

Kristy Hopkins came to a stop right in front of where Nick was sitting and looked down at him blankly. Nick looked up at her, unsure of what he was supposed to do. He was unsure if this was even real anymore. How was he supposed to believe that he was going to be reunited with people that he had known who had since passed away and were supposed to teach him life lessons? He figured that it was all a bad dream and that he had no control of what was going to happen, so he didn't do anything for a while until he decided that it was better to try and do something than just sit there like an idiot.

Nick stood slowly and was now looking down at Kristy slightly due to their height difference and how close they were standing. Nick suddenly forgot how to speak, and so instead of sitting and looking like an idiot, he was standing in front of her looking like even more of an idiot.

It seemed to Nick as if they were just going to stand there the whole time until Lily came back. And then without warning or the slightest hesitation, Kristy raised her right hand and slapped Nick in the face forcefully. His head snapped to the side and his cheek immediately began burning, which caused him great confusion not only as to why she had hit him but also why he could feel the pain from the slap and not that of his wounded shoulder.

Nick slowly turned back to face Kristy. Tears were running down from her dark eyes, their wet trails glistening in the red sunlight. "What do you have to say for yourself?" she asked, her voice showing no sign of the emotion that was plastered all over her face.

Nick's eyes were locked with hers and he found himself unable to blink. "Hi," he said weakly, the one syllable word taking him forever to manage through the lump in his throat.

Kristy inhaled sharply as she hit him again, this time with more a close fist that caused her manicured nails to slice into Nick's skin, cutting it open. The sting was quickly soothed with the warmth of the blood lightly seeping from the scrapes. Nick again turned his head back to face Kristy, who could no longer keep her tears at bay. She let them cascade down her cheeks to continue down her neck and over her collarbones. She managed to choke back a sob before she threw both of her arms around Nick's neck and pulled herself against him.

Nick wrapped his arms carefully around Kristy's waist as she cried against his neck, her warm tears running over his skin like water from a shower head. He didn't know what to say or do, so he waited patiently for the rise and fall of her chest to match his, and when it did she stepped back and let her hands fall to her sides.

"I've been waiting a long time to do that," Kristy said quietly.

"To hit me?" Nick asked.

Kristy laughed slightly as she shook her head. "No. To hug you." She pulled him into another tight embrace so she could whisper in his ear. "I'm sorry I hit you...I'm just so mad at you. I've been so mad at you for so long there was nothing else I could think to do."

Nick was the one who pulled back from the embrace. "You blame me for what happened to you," he said more than asked.

Kristy wiped at her eyes, but to no avail. The tears flowed without being deterred even slightly. "I don't want to. I know you didn't mean for me to get killed. I don't even blame you for that."

"Then why are you so mad at me? What did I do?"

"You didn't stay," Kristy said as if everyone in the world knew. "That night. After we slept together. You left. You didn't stay. If you had, I wouldn't have died. And things would have been a lot different and a lot better. For me at least. It's not even about me being murdered than it is about me trusting you, only to have you break my heart."

Nick shook his head slowly. "I...what?"

"I slept with you that night because I like you. Like, liked, whatever. You were so sweet to me and I knew I could trust you. I wasn't working you, I actually cared about you. And I thought that you were the kind of guy who could see the good in me and care about me too. But I was just a prostitute to you that you could take advantage of."

"You couldn't be more wrong," Nick replied. "You have no idea how wrong you are."

"Then why did you leave?" Kristy almost yelled.

"I thought you wanted me to," Nick said, understanding that it wasn't the best excuse but it was the truth. "I thought that you were just upset after what happened with Jack and wanted to blow off some steam."

"You thought I was using you?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. Not really I guess. Look, I cared about you. I still do, I think about you all the time. I called you the next morning to see if you wanted to go out to breakfast, that's how I found out you were dead. I paid for you to be buried. I almost got arrested for your murder, but Catherine proved it was Jack. If I had known what was going to happen that night, I would have never left your side. But I didn't know, and I made a stupid assumption that you wanted me to leave so I did. And I'm sorry."

Kristy bit her bottom lip to try and make it stop quivering. "I never thought a girl like me could get a guy like you to actually care about me. That's why I thought you left. I didn't think I was ever going to see you again unless I got arrested or something. And then Jack showed up and none of it mattered anymore."

Nick felt his own tears stinging his eyes. "He said you were going back to school to recruit more girls. Was he lying to me, or were you?"

Kristy raised her hand to hit Nick again, but when he didn't try to move away she stopped. "Are you really gonna stand there and let me slap you as many times as I want?"

Nick shrugged. "If it'll make you feel any better, than yeah. Your the one who's supposed to be teaching the lesson."

"I wasn't lying to you," Kristy said. "Believe it or not, I was afraid I wasn't good enough for you. I had been thinking about going back to school for a long time and when I met you, I decided it was definitely worth it. I knew I wouldn't be able to have you if you didn't respect me."

Nick was shocked. "Wait, you actually wanted to da-"

"Date you," Kristy said, finishing Nick's sentence. "Yeah, I did. I wasn't using you and I didn't want to keep going down the same road anymore. That's why I got killed, remember? Jack the dumbass pimp. I made the right decision to get out, but it was too late."

Nick had no idea what to say, so he just took in everythign Kristy had said up to this point and tried his best to process it. Before he had a chance to take in half of it, she spoke again.

"It was just a one night stand to you, wasn't it?" Kristy asked sadly.

Nick shook his head. "No, it wasn't. I wanted more, but didn't think you did. I figured I would just take it one step at a time and see where we could get." He sighed sadly and shook his head again. "I shouldn't have taken my time. I let everyone convince me you were a bad idea instead of just asking you out when I knew I liked you. And now...I can't do anything about it."

Kristy's tears refused to stop, and with nothing left to say she pulled Nick into another hug with no signs of intending to ever let go. He wrapped his arms around her just as tight and closed his eyes as he rested his head against hers. They stood like that, together, for a decent amount of time. Kristy was all cried out and forced herself to be happy for the fact that she was with Nick now. She slowly pulled back from him before pulling him down onto the sand to sit next to her. She held his hand in her lap as she looked out at the setting sun.

"I feel like I've known you for so much longer than I actually have," she said softly. "I check in on you all the time, to make sure your still kicking ass as a CSI and not running around chasing girls and being stupid," she teased.

Nick smiled. "That was always Warrick's thing, not mine."

"One of my goals for resting peacefully in heaven is that I'm supposed to forgive you," Kristy said. "But that was a stupid goal to ever even have because I never actually blamed you for what happened to me. I know you would have protected me if you could have. I was mad at the fact that I never got to prove to you that I was worth all the trouble I put you through. I guess I convinced myself I needed to forgive you so that I would get to see you at least one more time."

Nick squeezed her hand gently. "You're one of my people for a reason. You have something to offer, I always knew that. That's why I never passed off a case involving you to someone else. I was afraid to go to you so I always waited for you to have to come to me."

Kristy nodded. "That's what I wanted to teach you," she said. "You can't take time for granted. It goes by so fast, you can lose days, weeks, even months without even realizing your losing track of chunks of your life. We both took time for granted and assumed we had forever to make a relationship between the two of us, but we didn't. We took tomorrow as a gurantee when it's not. I want to teach you to live each moment like it's your last so that you don't wish you had a second chance like I do."

"I know that, I just haven't put it to good use yet," Nick observed.

Kristy turned to look at him. "Well get going with that buddy," she said. "You don't have forever to make something of today."

Nick couldn't help but smile. "Is that your lesson?"

"If you want to reduce my wisdom to a mere nine words, then yeah. That's my lesson. But you should have gotten more out of this than just that."

Nick nodded. "Oh yeah, I definitely did. Don't worry about that."

"You're not going to remember any of this when you go back," Kristy said with a sad smile. "When you understand what we're teaching you, you'll put it to good use when you go back, but you won't remember going through any of this. You'll open your eyes and be on the floor of that restaurant, and only a minute or so will have passed between when you were shot and when you woke up."

"What if I don't go back?" Nick asked.

"You will," Kristy replied with a small nod. "I know you will."

Nick shook his head. "It seems like a much better idea to just stay here."

As soon as the last word left his lips, Nick felt a dull pain in his shoulder. He winced in surprise and looked down at his throbbing wound that still wasn't bleeding.

"When you lie, the pain in your should will get worse to prove to you you're lying," Kristy explained. "The pain will also get worse the closer you get to the end when you'll have to decide to go back or not."

"Why?" Nick asked, not understanding or liking all of these rules.

"So that you fully understand what you're going back to," Kristy said. "The pain in your shoulder will remind you of the pain you're in right now at the restaurant and the pain you've suffered through and will continue to suffer through. You have to be reminded of the pain so that your reasons for going back are strong enough to be worth it."

Nick sighed in frustration. "What's the point of giving me a chance to choose to go back or not? I'm going to die one day eventually, what difference does it make?"

"You still have a lot to offer to a lot of people," Kristy said soothingly, trying to calm Nick down. "You're here to learn, not to give up."

The dull throb in his shoulder was starting to annoy Nick. "So this is it, I move on to the next person and never see you again? And I'm supposed to put to use all of these lessons that I'm not even going to remember?"

Kristy nodded with a smile. "Yeah, that's the basic idea." She closed her eyes and leaned in slowly to kiss Nick. "Just because you don't remember something doesn't mean you forget it."

As soon as their lips met, the wind around them picked up tenfold and the sun exploded into a blinding light that forcefully pushed Nick back until he was lying on his side. He shut his eyes tightly and waited the few seconds it took for the wind and light to stop. When Nick opened his eyes and sat up, he was immediately taken aback by the sight before him. He was on the shore of Lake Mead, staring out at the flat water in front of him. The sun was high overhead, and there wasn't even the slightest of breezes to disturb the perfect serenity of the water or trees that surrounded him.

Nick glanced to his left, and was honestly surprised at who he saw sitting on the rock at the water's edge.


	3. Lasting Impressions

The man sitting on the rock smiled down at Nick, his figure somewhat obscured by the shade of the tree he was under but was by no means enough to hide his identity. His khaki shorts were wet at the bottom, as if he had waded in the water up to his knees and had been splashed by the soft wake of the waves. His hair was tossled by the nonexitsent wind, and his green t-shirt hung loose around his tanned body. His stood up, putting his bare feet down onto the warm, dry land and offering his hand out to Nick to help him to his feet. Nick accepted the hand, and winced in pain slightly when he pulled against the other man's weight to lift himself. His shoulder was aching slightly more now, and he knew it was only a matter of time until it was back to it's full state of agony.

"Mr. McBride?" Nick asked in disbelief when he was finally eye level with the other man.

"Call me Jude," he said with a laugh. "This is not a formal conference, no need for that mister stuff."

Nick nodded slightly. "Okay, Jude..." he trailed off, unsure of what to say next. "I'm sorry, I'm surprised to see you. Here."

"I can understand that," Jude replied. "We never even met. You only know me because you worked my family's murder. And I only know you because you saved my daughter's life."

Nick shrugged modestly. "I wasn't just going to let her die."

"But everyone else was," Jude explained. "Everyone else had given up hope, but not you. You wouldn't accept it. Because of you, Cassie is healthy and relatively happy. You saved her even though you didn't have to, even though everyone told you it was impossible."

"I never listen to anyone," Nick said jokingly.

Jude laughed and nodded. "That's what I like about you. You think for yourself and make your own choices. That's one of the reasons why you get to choose what happens to you back at that restaurant. Because you always make the right choice for yourself and for others."

Nick shook his head slowly. "Not always."

"You never make selfish choices with the intentions of hurting anyone," Jude retorted. "You need to give yourself more credit."

"Is that your lesson for me?" Nick asked.

"I made some very bad choices in my life," Jude continued. "I hurt a lot of people. I got my wife and son killed over drugs. My family name is ruined in our town because of what I chose to do. All the people that respected me think I got what I deserved, and I think I did too. But my wife didn't. My son didn't. Only Cassie did. She was rescued, by you. She lost her whole family, but her life was saved because you didn't give up."

Nick was about to ask again what the lesson was, but he stopped when Jude went on. "I knew how my choices could affect my family, but I chose to ignore what the consequences would be and kept doing it anyway. I never thought what I was doing would get my family killed. But it did, and I have to face that for the rest of eternity. But if I can help you, even just in the slightest way possible, then it'll make it that much better."

"How can you help me?" Nick asked, the words barely above a whisper.

"By making you realize that sometimes, things are the way they are just because. Sometimes we make the right choices and bad things happen anyway. Like when you catch the bad guy, but they get off for some idiotic reason. And sometimes someone makes the wrong choices, but get away with it. Like the bad guys getting to go free."

"There's always two sides," Nick added. "What's good for one person is bad for another."

Jude nodded. "Exactly. It's not always black and white. There's not always a reason for why something happens, and there's not always one way to go about something. But seeing the difference between right and wrong gets easier when you understand that sometimes, there isn't a difference."

Nick shook his head slowly. "Seeing what I have to see everyday makes that extremely difficult."

"But good comes out of the horrible things you have to see," Jude explained. "You help people who can't help themselves. You help their families. You save lives, directly and indirectly. Whether you know it or not, it's true. Just because you can't see something, doesn't mean it isn't there."

"I don't know if I can go back," Nick said softly. "It isn't as easy as it should be. The world is just so fucked up and I'm remidned of that every goddamn day."

"For every one bad thing in your life, there's two good things to be thankful for. Your family loves you. Your team loves you. There are people out there who don't even know you that depend on your every day because what you do really does matter. It mattered to me, and it mattered to Cassie. You saved her life, and in doing so you set me free. Without you, everything would be drastically different for everyone who has ever come into contact with you."

"Some people's lives would be better off without me," Nick observed. "I'm not a saint. There are people who hate me. There are people who wish they had never met me."

"Everyone is hated by someone," Jude said. "There's always two sides. No one is ever completely hated, and no one is ever completely loved. But the love of one is always, always stronger than the hate of a hundred."

Nick laughed lightly. "You sound like my old boss. He was always quoting stuff to us. I swear, he had a quote for every situation no matter what. All off the top of his head. He's the smartest guy I've ever met."

"Grissom," Jude said, somehow knowing who Nick was talking about. In response to Nick's confused frown, he answered, "I've talked to a lot of people since I've been up here Nick. It's a small world. And in these 'lesson' situations, I know pretty much everything you know."

"Is this even real?" Nick asked. "Or is all a figment of my imagination?"

Jude shrugged. "What difference does that make? If this is real, then you're learning things from people whose lives you've had an impact on, and only good came come of that. You'll literally make a life or death decision and will ultimately be a better person because of it. And if this is a figment of your imagination, then you must already know all of these lessons that you're having people teach you, so it can't do you any harm. Either side works in your favor."

Nick nodded slowly. "No offense, but if this were a figment of my imagination, I don't think I would have picked you. I didn't even know you. And I didn't know I had an impact on you."

"Then it must be real," Jude said with a smile.

"So what's the point of this?" Nick asked. "Not this whole thing in general, but your whole point. What's your lesson?"

Jude laughed again. "You of all people should know that nothing's that simple. It's not always black and white."

"That sounds like a lesson," Nick said with a sigh.

"A lesson isn't always expressed in words," Jude said. "Sometimes it's expressed through actions. Other times, through choices."

"I am willing to bet my next paycheck that your lesson has something to do with choices," Nick said with a smirk. "I know teaching can be done through all kinds of different methods, but the way I always learned best was to have it explained to me, with words, face to face. It wouldn't make any sense for my life lessons to be given to me any other way besides conversation, like this."

Jude nodded. "You make a very good point. But who says you get to decide how things work?"

"I do," Nick answered quickly, and then was unsure of why he had done so. He frowned slightly. "I mean, obviously not all things, but most things. Most things that have to do with me anyway."

Jude's smile was growing exponentially with each word Nick said. "What makes you think you have the capability of making such choices? Why do you get to choose certain things and other people don't?"

"Because," Nick said lamely. "Things just work out that way sometimes. Some people are born into good fortune, others have to earn it. Some people get to make the right decisions for themselves, other people aren't lucky enough to get to." After he had finished speaking, Nick's own lips mirrored Jude's smile. "You're making me answer my own questions."

"Bingo," Jude said happily. "I could have just said something that I thought would make a good lesson for you and then sent you on your merry way, but it's more effective if I make you explain it to me. Then I know for sure that you truly understand it."

"Sometimes things just happen," Nick said, nodding as he reiterated the point. "There isn't always a reason. There isn't always a choice that can be made."

"So when there is..." Jude began, then trailed off for Nick to finish.

"Take the opportunity to make the choice for yourself. It doesn't always happen, so when it does, it's for a reason."

"You have a very important choice to make," Jude said. "But I want you to think more about why you're making the choice more than the actual choice itself. You'll be thinking about that enough." Jude paused for a moment as Nick winced as the pain in his shoulder increased. "Choices aren't always black and white. There's always two sides. What's good for you can be bad for someone else, and vice versa."

Nick nodded quickly in hopes that his understanding would make the pain go away. "It's only going to get worse, isn't it," he stated instead of asked.

Jude nodded sadly. "You already knew that," he said. "But it's for a reason."

If Jude had continued to speak, Nick wouldn't have known because the wind suddenly picked up, whirling all around them like there was a storm approaching. The light from the sun that was coming straight down expanded the cover the whole area of the sky. Nick looked up, and despite the brightness he didn't need to shield his eyes. He watched as the golden sunlight exploded into white, encasing everything around him. He shut his eyes as the wind continued, and when everything became still again he kept his eyes closed as his right hand clutched his aching shoulder. When he opened his eyes, the vast mountain range drenched by the setting sun was revealed to him. He was standing at the top of a mountain, straing out at the rolling hills and high peaks all around him. He turned about slowly, taking in everything he could all at once.

Nick had turned completely back around to come face to face with something that made his heart skip a beat and tears sting his eyes. 


	4. All Apologies

The setting sun cast a reddish glow on everything in sight, making the scene appear to be something of great joy or beauty when what was in front of Nick was really breaking his heart. He couldn't swallow the lump in his throat and his hands were shaking at his sides. The pain in his shoulder thumped along with his racing heart, but he ignored that pain and focused all his attention and energy on the young woman standing in front of him. The thought of her still made his heart wrench, and seeing her now in his current situation made the agony no better.

"Nick," she greeted him with a wide smile.

"Haley," Nick breathed. "I can't believe it's you."

Haley shook her head, still smiling. "Why not?"

Nick shrugged weakly. "I didn't think you'd want to see me."

"I don't blame you for what happened to me," Haley said, her smile shrinking slightly. "That's part of the reason I'm here. You've suffered over what happened to me more than anyone else has, and you barely knew me. What happened wasn't your fault, it was a product of years and years of misfortune and just plain tragedy. It had nothing to do with you."

Nick shook his head repeatedly. "I could have figured out what was going on. I could have figured it out sooner and your mom wouldn't have been around to kill you. She should have been in jail, I should have seen what she had done. You should still be alive. I should have figured it out."

"But you didn't," Haley said simply, "and nothing can change that. It wasn't your fault for what was happening, so there wasn't much you could do to fix it. You didn't cause any of it, so it was harder for you to see what was going on and therefor harder for you to figure it out."

Nick kept shaking his head. "But that's my job. My job is to see that kind of stuff and figure it out to keep people like you safe. I didn't do my job, and it got you killed. I could have prevented what happened to you."

"And what good would that have done?" Haley asked. "You understand better than anyone else could how hard it was to be me. How much it sucked for me to know who I really was and yet I had to be someone I didn't want to be and live with people who saw me as a peace offering. I was the daughter they had as a replacement, not the daughter that they wanted. I wasn't their daughter. Everyone at my school hated me. My parents, the people that were supposed to love me even hated me. I'm better off here. I'm happier here."

Nick shook his head. "You would have been able to grow up, and none of that would have married. You would have been able to go away to college and get married and have a family of your own. Your life didn't have to end the way that it did."

"A lot of things that have happened to a lot of other people didn't have to," Haley said. "I'm just a kid and even I know that. Just because something shouldn't happen, doesn't mean it isn't going to. Think about all the things that shouldn't have happened to you in your life, but they did anyway. That's proof that's there's no should have or shouldn't have, just what was or what wasn't."

Nick sighed heavily. "So what is this? Is your point to forgive me and make me realize that what happened to you wasn't my fault, and that shit happens and there's nothing I can do about it so I should just feel better and go back to my life and let go of all the fucked up things I've seen or done?"

Haley nodded slightly. "That's pretty much it."

"It's not that easy," Nick protested. "What if I don't want to go back? What if I want to just die and stay here? Why the hell would I want to go back to that restaurant, where I'm bleeding to death on the floor, and resume my hellish life?"

"You're asking the wrong person that question Nick. I can't answer that for you. Nobody can answer that question for you except for you. No matter what anyone would answer to that, you would have a reason to stay here. Because it's the easy way out, for you. But it isn't the easy way for anyone else. You have to think about what's going to happen to Ray if you die there on that floor. Dr. Jekyll is still in that restaurant, and help isn't close by. He's by himself, with a dying man and a psychopath. He needs your help. If you die, he most likely will die as well."

The thought of Ray dying due to his own selfishness made the pain in Nick's shoulder intensify tenfold. It was starting to go from a dull throbbing to a sharp, shooting pain. He winced in both pain and frustration and was beginning to lose his patience with this whole lesson ordeal. He still didn't understand how the hell he was going to put these lessons to good use if he wasn't even going to remember any of this if and when he woke up back in Las Vegas on the floor of that restaurant.

"So I'm supposed to go back for everybody else's benefit, not mine?" Nick asked.

Haley shrugged. "Kind of. It's a little bit of both. By going back and benefiting your friends, you'll be helping yourself."

"How?" Nick asked.

"You'll realize that your life isn't as bad as it seems," Haley answered. "It definitely isn't easy, and there are a lot of bad things that have happened to you and that will continue to happen. But there are also good parts. Don't think so much about what you won't miss, but more about what you would miss if you didn't go back. Who would help Greg and Hodges kidnap Henry on his birthday? Who would Catherine dump all her paperwork off on or grab a drink with after work? Who would Ray turn to for advice or have to look up to?"

When Nick considered the option of leaving all that behind, the pain from his shoulder shot all the way down his arms to his fingers. "Remember when Warrick died?" Haley asked, snapping Nick out of his thoughts and forcing him to ignore the pain in his arm.

Nick nodded. "Of course I do."

"Remember how upset you and everyone else was because they lost a part of their family? Because they lost someone they truly cared about and loved?" Nick nodded again. "They would all have to go through that pain again if you were to stay here. They would all lose someone that they love very much and would have to feel the pain of that loss every day in your absence, just like you and everyone else already does with the loss of Warrick. If you stay here, you would knowing and willingly be putting your friends through a pain that you fully understand is extremely torturous, and you're just simply not that selfish."

"If everyone already knows I'm going to go back, then why make me decide? Why make me do all of this?"

"We all know it, but you don't. Not yet. You still have this idea in your head that you're capable of giving up and staying here. So you need to be taught these lessons and shown that you aren't capable of abandoning everything you've ever cared about. No matter how easy it may seem to give up, it's anything but."

When Nick opened his mouth to argue, he instead gasped when the air was suddenly forced from his lungs by his chest tightening. He felt his heart pouding against his ribs and knew that this was the repercussions of him attempting to lie. He knew Haley was right, but he wasn't ready to admit it. He knew he would never intentionally put his friends through any pain, but he didn't want to put himself through any more either.

"Okay," Nick said so softly it was almost a whisper. "So what am I supposed to learn from you? What's your lesson?"

Haley smiled. "Something you should have figured out a long time ago. You probably already know it, or even heard it before, but you never thought it applied to you. You're too modest Nick."

"Too modest about what?"

"Your impact on other people," Haley said. "Everyone has some impact on the people around them, whether it's positive or negative, or a little bit of both. In your case, concerning the people directly related to you everyday, you impact is extremely positive and effective to a point that they look forward to seeing you everyday. You don't realize that, do you?"

Nick shook his head slowly. "No, not really. What do you even mean exactly?"

"I mean you have to be more aware of what your friends think of you because it's you're so important to them," Haley explained. "For example, when Warrick died, everyone looked to you to hold the team together, and you did. Even Grissom counted on you to be the rock, and you were. You simply being around made everyone feel better." Reading Nick's thoughts, Haley continued by saying, "Even if they never told you that. And when Grissom left, everyone knew you would step up. They knew it was going to be okay because even though he was leaving, you would still be there."

Nick swallowed hard. "How do you know all of this?"

"It's my job to know all of this," Haley said simply. "Everyone should know how strong of an impact they have on others. When they do, it helps them to understand how important they are to other people and that keeps them going. You're not meant to be another face in the crowd Nick. You're a very important person to a lot of people who need you in their lives, just like you need them in yours. The gap in everyone's hearts that was once filled by Warrick would be doubled in size and pain with the loss of you."

"So I'm supposed to be guilted into going back?"

Haley shook her head. "You can't be convinced one way or another. You have to decide on your own accord. You won't be able to do either unless it's what you truly want."

"What if I don't know what I want?" Nick asked. "What's gonna happen when time is up and I can't make up my mind?"

"You already have your mind made up," Haley replied. "You already know exactly what you want to do, it's just a matter of you arriving at that conclusion and accepting it. You have to go through this whole process to be shown that what you want is the right thing and that it is in fact what you truly want."

Nick fell silent and turned his attention to the scenery surrounding him. The mountains were unlike anything he had ever seen before. Their beauty and vastness was almost overwhelming, much like the situation he found himself in. There were so many things going through his mind and heart that he felt like just laying down and closing his eyes, allowing whatever course he was destined to be on set out by itself. He had never really believed in the idea of destiny, but he figured now was a good enough time as ever to start believing in it. Without much else to go on, Nick knew he'd have to do this all on his own despite the advice and lessons being taught to him by these people he had known and had effective when they were alive.

"Can my decision change?" Nick asked, his eyes still transfixed on the mountains behind Haley.

Haley frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You said I already know what I'm going to do, my mind is already made up," Nick elaborated. "But when it comes time to officially make my choice, is it necessarily going to be what I originally planned on doing?" Haley shook her head silently. "So it really is all up to me," Nick said softly.

Haley nodded slightly. "What we want changes all the time based on what's around us," she said. "That includes the people around us and what they want and need. You may want something so badly, but if it's not best for those we care about and those who care about us, what we want changes based on that. It can change as easily as what movie you want to go see or what you feel like having for lunch."

Nick smiled for the first time since he had seen Haley. "I'm starting to miss everything already," he said. "You don't realize how much people mean to you until they're not there in front of you anymore."

Haley nodded with a wide smile. "Exactly."

"Do I take them for granted?" Nick asked. "Is that what you're trying to teach me?"

"No," Haley said honestly. "You don't. But at the same time, you don't fully appreciate how much you need them and how much they need you." Before Nick could argue that they were the same thing, Haley added, "They're not the same thing either. You show that you care about them just as they do for you. You know they won't be there forever, and neither will you."

Nick nodded in understanding. "I just don't understand what I did to deserve the chance to make such an important choice as this that's going to affect so many people."

Haley smiled again. "It's not what you did, it's what you're going to do."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, they're very much appreciated! Also, sorry for the lag time between updates, I've been working and on vacation so it's slowing down my production rate. Hope you're enjoying so far!


	5. Island In The Sun

The pain in Nick's shoulder was getting more intense, telling him that his time with Haley was almost up and that he'd be moving on to his fourth person very shortly. He didn't want to leave just yet, but at the same time he was eager to get through all of this so that he could make his final decision and see where all of this eventually took him. He wanted to get this over with because he was nervous about who his next two people would be and would was going to happen. He was scared that he was wasting precious time back at the restaurant and that if he stayed here too long, he wouldn't go back and would have to watch the consequences of that decision turn deadly.

"Is everybody alone in their heaven?" Nick asked as soon as the random question had popped into his head. "Everyone that I've seen has been by themselves. Do you have to be alone?"

Haley shook her head. "No. Your heaven is whatever makes you truly happy. It just happens so that you don't pick what you think you want rather than what you really want. And who you really want to be with is there with you, so it's a combination of utopias."

"But only if their dead," Nick said.

Haley nodded. "You can't be with people down there when you're up here, just like you can't be with us up here if you're down here."

Nick sighed. "Catch-22."

"You already knew that," Haley said. "Things don't change depending on how badly you want them to. They can only change if it's what you want."

"So how can someone else know what I want if I don't?" Nick asked. "What if I want my heaven to be a beach but it ends up being a desert because someone else thinks it's what I really want?"

"It doesn't work like that," Haley replied. "You don't get put somewhere by someone else. You just die, and then wake up where you really want to be. There's no choice involved, your subconscious takes care of it all."

"What if my subconscious is wrong?"

Haley shook her head. "It can't be, that's why it's your subconscious. You can't control it, and you can't change it unless you absolutely want to, then it does on its own."

Nick was about to ask more pressing questions, but the pain in his shoulder increased to a sudden jolt that was so painful it caused him to fall to his knees and clutch at the wound. He grimaced in pain and looked up to Haley for help, but he knew there was nothing she would be able to do.

"You have to go," she said. "Time's running out, here and there."

And with that, a sudden rush of wind came flooding over the mountains in front of him, picking up speed until it crashed into Nick's chest and knocked him back before pinning him to the ground. He closed his eyes and let the cold air wash over him. He remained that way until the wind died down to a gentle breeze and he could feel the heat of the sun on his face. He caught his breath and opened his eyes to the bright blue sky above him. He saw up slowly with some difficulty coming from his shoulder, but the pain was soon forgotten at the sight around him. He was surrounded by a maze of brightly colored flowers and plants. He was sitting on the beginning of a stone path that only continued in front of him, not behind. The path weaved through the masses of plants and then turned out of sight.

As Nick was gazing out at the maze before him, he heard someone approaching from behind him. His chest instantly tightened and his hands began to shake. Everything in his body told him not to turn around, and as soon as that sensation his him, that's exactly what he did. Nick turned around slowly to see the man that, to him, had only existed in his nightmares. A man that Nick had never met, and yet still wouldn't be who he was without this man.

Walter Gordon came to stop behind where Nick was sitting. He had a small, worried smile on his face. He wordlessly extended his hand for Nick to take, and wasn't the least bit surprised when the younger man didn't move a muscle. Nick wanted to get up and run, or at least turn away, but he couldn't do anything except stare up at the man that had almost taken his life.

"You're going to have to trust me Nick," Gordon said with his hand still extended. "I understand that you neither want to or think that you can, but you have to."

"What if I don't?" Nick asked.

Gordon sighed. "Then you'll die."

Nick scoffed. "Bullshit."

"I'm not lying," Gordon replied. "I can't lie to you. None of us can. In order to get to the end of this and be allowed to make your decision, you have to go through all five people. I'm one of your five people. You don't go on unless you're ready, and you won't be until you can trust me."

Nick stood on his own, ignoring the offer of help from the man now standing eye to eye with him. "You tried to kill me," he stated simply. "Why in the hell should I trust you?"

"Because you have to," Gordon said. "I can't hurt you unless you let me, but I'm not going to hurt you. Just like everyone else, I'm here to help you. And you're here to help me."

Nick shook his head. "I still have nightmares about it," he said. "I still get claustrophobic and I still think about it all the time. I think about how I almost killed myself because of the situation you put me in. You were the reason I almost died."

"Almost," Gordon said, "but you didn't."

"So you're calling no harm no foul?" Nick asked. "That's fucking ridiculous and you know it. You have no idea what I went through after that happened. I tried to forgive you because you were doing it for your daughter, but I couldn't understand how you could do that to someone you didn't even know. You have no idea what you did to me."

Gordon nodded slowly. "Yes, I do. As soon as I died, I came up here and had to watch you suffer through what I did to you. I had to watch you gasping for breath and being eaten alive by those ants. I had to watch you put that gun to your head, and I honestly was pleading with you to just put it down."

Nick clutched his shoulder as the pain just kept getting worse. He knew that Gordon wasn't lying, but he still didn't want to believe any of what he was saying.

"I didn't understand the magnitude of what I had done until I had to watch you in that box. It was perfectly fine for me to torture and eventually kill a stranger because I knew nothing about you and just told myself you deserved it because what you do for a living put my innocent daughter in jail. And then I saw your friends and family watching you on that video monitor and I understood. I understood that you were a good guy that didn't deserve any of what was happening to him. I saw your friends' hearts breaking at the very though of losing you as they struggled to do everything they could to find you."

Nick kept shaking his head at everything Gordon said. "That doesn't make you understand."

"It all helped me to understand," Gordon explained calmly. "Seeing what was happening to you was sobering, but not as much as seeing what it was doing to other people. Seeing how badly it affected your team, especially that man Grissom that I talked to, really hit me. They all refused to except that you were going to die like that and made sure you didn't."

"Why didn't you think that my friends were going to care about me being buried alive like that?"

"I knew they would, that's why I sent them the USB and tape. But I wasn't expecting them to go to the lengths they did, but it wasn't just seeing the affect it had on them that made me realize what I had done. I watched when your friends went and talked to Kelly to see if she knew anything about what I had done. After they told her I had blown myself up, she showed no emotion. She showed no emotion at all until she told your friends she hoped that you died. I watched my daughter wish death upon someone she didn't even know. That's something you don't understand about me."

"There's a lot I don't understand about you," Nick said. "And there's more you don't understand about me. How can I expect to learn something from you when I don't even know you?"

Gordon motioned with his hand to the path surrounded by all the flowers. "You're just going to have to take a chance and trust me to find out, won't you?"

Nick turned and looked at the path for a very long time and then turned back to Gordon with a heavy sigh. "God damn it," he mumbled under his breath.

Gordon smiled and moved past Nick, walking slowly as he waited for the other man to follow. Nick eventually did, and soon the two were walking side by side through the thousands of flowers all around them. It seemed to Nick that no two flowers were alike in shape or exact color. He looked on up ahead of them and began to wonder if this maze ever ended.

"This isn't your heaven," Nick said matter of factly.

Gordon nodded. "Yes it is. It had exactly what I wanted."

Nick frowned. "A bunch of flowers?"

Gordon laughed. "They're not so bad. But it's not what is here so much as who was here."

Nick looked at Gordon, but the other man was looking at the flowers passing by his moving feet. "Kelly?" Nick asked.

Gordon nodded again. "This is her heaven, and I wanted her in mine so I came to hers."

"But she died after you did."

"What we want changes all the time Nick," Gordon said. "Your heaven is what you want. If what you want changes, so does your heaven. Heaven's job is to make you happy, no matter what that is." When Nick fell silent, Gordon chose this time to ask Nick a question that had been plaguing him since the younger man had turned around back at the beginning of the path. "You didn't think I was going to heaven, did you?"

Now it was Nick's turn to avert his eyes from the other man. Knowing he couldn't lie even if he tried, Nick decided to just be honest. "No, I didn't," he answered. "I didn't think you would because you did a lot of bad things, and I bet there's more I don't even know about."

"You're right. But it's not as simple as that. When I died, I watched what I had done to you play out. And I regretted every second of it. I screamed and screamed for you to pull through and your friends to find you. I understood and regretted what I had done, so I was given a second chance. And when Kelly died, she was given a second chance too."

"Then why isn't she here, in her heaven?" Nick asked.

"You're our second chance," Gordon explained. "We were both supposed to be your fourth person, but she refused. So she lost her chance at a second chance."

Nick didn't understand. "So what happened to her?"

Gordon shrugged sadly. "I don't know. But I get to stay here in her heaven and be reminded of her by what she loved, but only if you let me."

"Why do I have to decide?"

"Because you're the reason I died," Gordon said. "So now you're the reason I get a second chance to do something good."

"What happens to you if I don't let you stay here?" Nick asked.

"I don't know, and neither will you. When you leave me and go on to your last person, I'll either stay here or I won't. There's no button to push or choice to be circled on a piece of paper. The decision lies within your heart. It just happens. So what you decide will become of me will just happen."

Nick nodded slowly. "Okay," he said softly. "I guess it won't kill me to hear you out. Apparently it will kill me if I don't though, so what the hell."

Gordon smiled. "I wasn't always such a bad guy," he said. "When Kelly went to prison, part of my heart went with her. I was so angry and heartbroken and though revenge was the best way to make it better. Obviously, I was wrong. But I learned that from you."

"How?"

"When you went to see Kelly, you didn't take out on her what I did to you. You chalked it up to me doing what I did out of love for her, which is absolutely true. You have her something no one else ever could. You gave her hope. But she was too much like me and wanted revenge."

"Looks like everyone got what they wanted," Nick said.

"Except you. You didn't want any of that. You were thrown in the middle of it for no good reason. It was another of the many terrible things that have happened to you in your life. But that's where I come in with my words of wisdom."

Nick had been highly anticipating this lesson. "And what would that be?"

"Your life isn't all bad, am I right?" Gordon asked, receiving a nod from Nick in response. "There's a lot of good things that have happened as well. But sometimes it's hard to think about those things when there's bad things to think about."

Gordon paused for a few seconds before continuing. "But fair's fair, right? Everything should be treated equally, no?"

"Yeah, it should," Nick replied.

Gordon nodded in agreement. "So if you don't dwell on good, happy moments and ask 'why did this happen to me?' then what right do you have to do so in moments of sorrow or pain?" Nick understood what Gordon meant, but had no idea how to respond, so when he didn't the older man continued. "I'm not saying you do this all the time or that you're the only culprit. Everyone does it. When something terrible happens, it can take over a person's life while they're stuck wondering 'what if?' all the time. After everything, I'm convinced that wondering 'what if?' is the worst thing there is."

"That's all easier said than done," Nick retorted. "It's all true, but almost impossible to put into practice."

"Why?" Gordon asked.

Nick racked his brain for words to explain why. "It's natural to want to know why bad things ever happen to us."

Gordon nodded slightly. "Has anyone ever given you a good reason for any of the things that have happened to you?"

"No," Nick answered, shaking his head. "Always the same old 'everything happens for a reason' or something like that."

"And do you believe that?"

"No," Nick replied. "If everything happened for a reason, there would be something to say to someone after something bad happens other than 'everything happens for a reason,' but there isn't."

"Some things do happen for a reason. You got kidnapped for a reason. I wanted revenge and needed the money. But there was no reason for why it happened to you. There's always a reason things happen, but there isn't always reasoning for why they had to occur in the first place," Gordon said.

The pair came to a sudden stop as the path came to an abrupt stop. Nick paused for a few seconds before taking the last few steps to the edge and looking down fifty feet at the waves crashing against the side of the cliff. The blue-green ocean sparkled in the sunlight and stretched on and on until it met the sky in a straight line. As he looked out at the ocean, a sharp jolt of pain shot through Nick's body, originating in his shoulder. He pressed his palm against it to make it stop, but it only got worse. It was getting closer every second to feeling as bad as it did when he had been shot at the restaurant, telling Nick he was getting very close to moving on to his next and final person and ultimately deciding whether or not he was going to go back.

"Life's too short to let the bad things we see and experience ruin it," Gordon said as he came to stand next to Nick. Nick turned his attention to the other man, who was looking down at the waves now. "Positive emotion will trump negative every time. You can't let something consume you, or it will destroy you. Just look at what happened to me and my daughter."

Nick was about to reply, but was unable to before Gordon reached over and gripped his right, uninjured shoulder. "I'm glad you trusted me Nick. I know you understand what I wanted you to because your shoulder hurts more now. You're ready to go." Gordon took a step closer to Nick and said softly, "Thank you for trusting me."

Without warning, Gordon leaned forward almost right up against Nick and then suddenly pushed against him, knocking him off balance and sending him over the edge of the cliff. Nick was so shocked he didn't even yell out. He felt his feet leave the ground and the wind against his face as it rushed past him. But as he fell, he didn't feel his stomach jump into his throat like it always. His heart wasn't beating any faster than normal. He felt peaceful, not scared. As he got closer to the ocean, the light it reflected grew into a large, bright ball and by the time Nick hit the water, his eyes were closed and he had shifted positions so his back was to the waiting ocean.


	6. Reclusion

There was no sound of the splash when Nick hit the water. To him, it felt more like the water had opened up and made a hole and then closed around him once he was inside. The water was neither warm nor cold and only added a slight sting to the pain in his shoulder. A few seconds after having landed in the water, Nick hit the ocean floor. Upon doing so, he opened his eyes and wasn't surprised when the salt water didn't sting them. The water around him was perfectly clear, allowing him to see the sandy bottom he was sitting on and the completely deserted ocean floor that extended all around him. Nick looked up and realized that instead of having to swim to the surface, all he had to do was stand up. The water was only about four feet deep, so when he did the water only came up to just past his waist.

Nick wiped the water from his face and turned around, looking for the cliff that he had just fallen off of. But it was nowhere to be seen. There was no waves crashing against the side of it. In its place was a small, sandy beach and behind it was a series of grassy hills and tall palm trees that when on for as far as Nick could see. Having nowhere else to go, Nick trudged through the water to the shore. Once both of his feet were on the dry sand, he suddenly became aware of and felt the warmth of the sun wash all over him. He looked down as the feeling radiated all the way down to his feet, and after one look at his body Nick realized he wasn't soaking wet like he should have been after having come out of the ocean. His clothes were completely dry as if he had never been in the water in the first place.

"Pretty cool huh?"

The voice came from off to Nick's right, but the Texan didn't need to look up to know who it was. He had been waiting for this person to come along since his first person, but he should have known all along that Warrick Brown would be saved for last.

Nick smiled as he looked up and saw his best friend standing on the beach a few feet away from him. Warrick smiled back as the two walked towards each other in order to pull one another into a tight hug. The embrace added pain to Nick's shoulder, but he didn't care at all. After a moment the two stepped back, both still smiling widely.

"I was wondering when you'd come along," Nick said.

"I had to chill here and make sure you went through the first four the right way to prove you deserved to see me," Warrick teased. "Let's go sit."

Nick followed Warrick over to a picnic table placed strategically on the line where the sand ended and the grass began, right under a palm tree that created comfortable shade. The two sat down across from each other and Warrick pulled a pair of beers from the cooler on the sand next to the table. He passed one to Nick, who had an amused smile on his face.

"I should have known they would serve beer in heaven," he said as he took the cold bottle from Warrick.

Warrick laughed. "Of course they do, it's my heaven man."

Nick took a long drink of what he quickly decided was the best thing he had ever tasted. The two were in a comfortable silence for a few moments while they enjoyed their beers and the sunny day. It wasn't long before Nick couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"Do you like it here?" Nick asked.

Warrick nodded. "It's not a bad deal."

"Do you like it better than Vegas?"

"How could I?" Warrick replied. "It's sweet here man, but nothing was better than Vegas because I was alive in Vegas. I was with you and everyone else. But I had my time there and now it's done. I've come to terms with that so now I can enjoy being here."

"You should still be down there with us," Nick said. "What happened wasn't fair."

"A lot of things aren't fair," Warrick said. "You know that just as well as I do. But there was nothing that could have been done to change what happened."

Nick shook his head. "I should have went out with you. I shouldn't have let you go to your car alone."

"Why?" Warrick asked. "So McKean would have killed both of us? He wouldn't have hesitated anymore if you were there than he did when you weren't. He would have been more than happy to kill the both of us. I'm glad you didn't come with me. I'm glad it was just me that got killed."

When Nick opened his mouth to argue, Warrick cut him off. "When we flipped that coin, and you got that trash run that got you buried alive, you never once blamed me. The whole time we were looking for you I kept thinking about how easily it could have been me down there and how much stronger you were than me. I would have given up right away, but you never did."

"What's your point?" Nick asked quietly.

"When we were looking for you, I've never been so scared in my life. I was terrified that I wasn't going to be able to save my best friend. But we did, we got you. I was so scared that we weren't going to be able to do anything about you being buried alive because there was nothing that could have been done for us to stop it from happening. That's how you feel now. You won't admit that there was nothing you could have done, so you blame yourself to convince yourself that you could have changed what happened. But you couldn't have. Blaming yourself now won't bring me back." Warrick leaned forward and looked Nick dead in the eye. "Nothing can bring me back Nicky."

Nick nodded slowly. "I know."

"Good," Warrick said. "I hate seeing you blaming yourself for what happened."

"It just sucks," Nick replied. "So much has changed. You're gone, Grissom's gone, Sara's only back part time. It feels like just yesterday you and I were competing to see who could get CSI 3 first. Now Greg's a CSI 3. It's insane. I can clearly remember him as the DNA tech, kicking us out of his lab every day and putting off running Grissom's evidence to come play video games with us in the break room."

Warrick laughed. "Those were the days," he said. "How's that new guy? Ray?"

"He's really smart," Nick said. "He caught on very quickly. And he's a really good guy. He cares a lot about the work and the team."

"He's a lot like you," Warrick noted. "Just from what I've seen, you two have a lot in common."

Nick nodded in agreement. "I know I can trust him. I feel like talking to him is like talking to an older, wiser version of you. Like a combination of you and Grissom. It's nice having Ray around, but it's not the same. If he had worked with us when you and Grissom were still there, no case would have ever gone unsolved."

Warrick smiled. "He needs you ya know," he said. "Back in that restaurant."

"I know," Nick replied. "He'll die if I stay here, won't he?"

Warrick shrugged. "I don't know. Nobody knows that. If it were a known fact, it would too greatly influence your decision. What you choose has to be what you want."

"Did you get to choose?"

Warrick shook his head. "No. But this isn't about me. This is about you. We don't have very long, and there's a lot we have to talk about. Per usual, you can't do anything without me. So I gotta teach you some shit so when you back, you'll be able to function."

Nick laughed at that. "  
Sounds like a plan."

Warrick took a drink from his bottle before beginning. "You have to let go."

Nick frowned in confusion. "Of what?"

"Everything you've lost," Warrick replied. "All the victims you couldn't save, all the bad guys that got away. Me."

"How can I just let go?" Nick asked. "I don't even know what letting go entails."

"Relief from pain," Warrick said. "It'll still hurt, don't get me wrong. There's no cure for heartbreak over a lost loved one. Especially me," he joked, eliciting a small laugh from Nick. "But when you let go, you come to terms with what happened and accept it. When you do that, thinking about me will make you happy instead of angry or sad. You gotta let go of what you can't change or hold on to anymore."

"Why?" Nick asked.

"So that you can move on with your life," Warrick said. "You can never fully be in your own life if you're still living in the past. It won't happen overnight, but if you can move on from losing things you think you should have been able to save, you'll be happier and better off."

Nick shook his head slowly. "How do I do that?"

"When you think about me, what do you think about?" Warrick asked.

"The night you died mostly," Nick replied.

"Well, when you let go, you'll think about the times we played basketball against Greg and Archie and beat the hell out of them. You'll think about all the times we annoyed Hodges and pissed off Ecklie. You'll be able to think about the good things that you want to think about and get past the bad shit that has a hold on you."

"I don't think I can do that," Nick said. "I don't do it on purpose. It all happens in my nightmares and dreams, and when something reminds me of you it just reminds me that you're gone. I feel like if I let go, I'll lose you completely. Everyone else can act like nothing happened. They all moved on, but I can't. I can't get over the fact that my best friend is dead."

"I don't want you to get over it," Warrick said. "You get over it when your team loses a game or when you have a bad day. You don't get over losing someone that was a part of your life for so long. You don't need to let go of me, you need to let go of your guilt and the burden you've been carrying since you came to Vegas. You need to let go of the pain."

Nick sighed. "I don't control the pain. I feel like I don't control anything anymore. I can't help or stop any of it."

"Yes you can," Warrick said with a nod. "You control the pain because you control how you view me. You think about how I died and how you wish you could change it, but you can't. You simply can't change what happened, so you have to let go of that. Let go of what happened. Let go of the past so you can live in the present and live for the future."

"What if I can't?" Nick asked.

Warrick shrugged. "Then you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about an event you can't change. It does you no good to keep thinking about it, and when you can let go, you can release a great deal of the pain you're suffering from it and focus on doing the things you have left to do with your life."

Nick fell silent as he finished off his beer. He turned and looked out at the ocean where the small waves were rolling up the beach and breaking softly. The wind carried a cool breeze off the water that blew through Nick's dark hair and rustled the leaves of the palm trees overhead. He knew that his time was drawing to a close with Warrick because the pain in his shoulder was getting to be extremely close to how it had been in the restaurant, but he told himself that if he ignored it he would be able to stay here as long as he wanted.

"Okay," Nick finally said. "Okay. I'll let go. I don't really know how or when I'm gonna be able to do this, but I will."

Warrick smiled. "Good. Because you can't help me back there. You need to help the people around you that love you."

Nick frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The team depends on you just as much as you depend on them. Catherine depends on you to keep her from going completely insane as much as you depend on her to always have your back. Greg needs you to look to in order to know that everything's going to be okay as much as you need him to make you laugh after even the worst case. They all need to see you fighting through the same shit they do because if they see you doing it, they know it's worth it. They can look at you and know it's going to be alright because they know you'll make sure it is."

Warrick's eyes had Nick's locked so that the other man couldn't look away. "You never, ever give up Nicky," he continued. "That used to piss me off because you were so stubborn, but I always knew it was one of your best qualities. Don't give up on anything, ever. Especially not yourself."

"Does it get any better?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, it does," Warrick said. "It will if you can forgive yourself and let go of what you couldn't control. It's got a hold on you, but only because you let it. You can let it go, but only if you want to."

Nick nodded slowly. "I really wish I was going to remember this," he said softly. "Being able to look back on this would really help a lot back there."

"Who says you can't look back at this?"

"I thought I wasn't going to remember any of this?"

"You won't," Warrick said.

Nick shook his head. "You're not making any sense. If I can't remember it, how can I look back at it?"

Warrick smiled. "Memories don't come from your mind, they come from your heart. You won't be able to remember exactly what you did or what was said, but you'll be able to remember how you felt. You'll know the things we taught you and when you need them and use them, the feeling you had when you were with us will come back. You won't consciously know what it is, but deep down you will. Your heart never forgets."

"Even if I let go?" Nick asked.

"You're not letting go of how you feel about something or someone. You don't let go of them, you let go of the pain that comes from losing them. You let go of the thoughts that make you think you can change it," Warrick explained.

Nick sighed heavily. "I can't go back," he whispered, more to himself than Warrick.

"Yes you can," Warrick argued. "You don't want to die Nick. If you stay here, that means you die. Then everyone you love and care about that loves you just as much is going to have to go to your funeral and cry and grieve over how unfair it was that you died doing the job that you love and are so good at. But what they won't know is that you chose to die. You chose to leave them and everything else behind because you thought it would fix things, but it won't."

"I can't go back," Nick repeated, but this time, as soon as the last syllable left his lips, the pain in his shoulder immediately skyrocketed to how bad it had been when he had first been shot. The sudden explosion of pain knocked the wind from Nick's lungs and was so bad he almost fell from his seat at the table but was stopped by Warrick reaching across and grabbing both of Nick's wrists in each hand.

"Look at me," Warrick instructed, but Nick's eyes were squeezed shut against the pain. "Nicky, look at me man."

Nick slowly opened his eyes and looked at Warrick. His breathing was labored from the tightness in his chest and the pain flowing through his body like a poison. He tried to focus on Warrick's tight grip on his wrists, but couldn't take his mind off of his shoulder.

"Changing your future doesn't change the past. Stopping yourself from having a future won't change the past. You can't stay here just because you feel guilty for what happened to me. It wasn't your fault, you can't change anything. You have to let go Nicky," Warrick said calmly to his suffering friend.

Nick felt tears stinging his eyes. "Why can't I just stay here with you?"

"You don't want to," Warrick replied. "That's why your shoulder hurts so much. You're scared to go back, but you want to. You don't want to stay here because you don't want to die. You're not ready to die yet Nick, but you're ready to let go."

Before Nick had time to realize what was happening, the table they were sitting at disappeared and they fell to the ground beneath them, which had shifted position and was at a slant. The slanted ground turned to a cliff that lead down to the ocean that couldn't be seen, but the waves were audible as they once again crashed against the side of the wall. The cliff ran off behind Warrick, so when he hit the ground he began sliding towards the edge. Nick scrambled after him and dove forward as Warrick was going over, catching his right wrist with his left hand. The weight and tug from holding Warrick's wrist pulled at Nick's shoulder, bringing the pain to an almost unbearable level. Warrick's whole body was over the edge and was being fully supported by Nick, who had just realized that the ground was now completely level and he wasn't going to fall off even though he was holding on to Warrick.

"I can't let go because I'm not holding on to you anymore," Warrick said, looking up at his best friend. "The burden of me dying isn't gripping your wrists anymore. It's not consuming your heart and mind. I let go of you. You have to let go of me Nicky."

Tears fell from Nick's eyes, both from the thought of letting go of his best friend and the pain in his shoulder. His arm was shaking and he knew he couldn't hold on much longer. He sighed in his frustration, but then the sigh turned into a deep, slow breath as Nick realized and accepted what he had to do. He smiled sadly at Warrick, who did the same. No more words needed to be spoken. Neither of them offered a goodbye because they both knew it was only the end for now, not forever.

Nick let his eyes close as he relaxed his hand and felt Warrick's wrist slip away. Once the weight was gone from his arm he opened his eyes and watched as his best friend fell slowly and calmly down towards the ocean. There was no splash, no sound. Nick watched as nothing happened, and when he was convinced he was really gone he rolled onto his back, his right arm resting above his head and his left clutched to his side, still in pain. The wind picked up and as it did, Nick closed his eyes, knowing fully well who was coming to talk to him now. Lily was walking towards him to send him back to that restaurant, but he wasn't ready yet. He didn't want to leave, but he knew he couldn't stay. So for the time being, he just pretended it was all okay.


	7. Turn It Off

The wind died down and then disappeared altogether. Nick was back in that feeling of nothingness he had first felt when he got to wherever it is that he started at. He couldn't feel the warmth of the sun or the breeze or the grass below him. All he could feel now was the pain in his shoulder that was a constant reminder of how things were back in that restaurant. Nick kept his eyes closed and his left hand pinned down by his side and willed it all to go away, but he knew it wouldn't just yet. Nick knew Lily was sitting in the grass next to him. He knew she was waiting for him to talk to her, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care at the moment.

"I told you this wasn't going to be easy," Lily finally said.

Nick opened his eyes and looked up at the little girl. "That's the biggest understatement I've ever heard," he replied. "I feel like my heart isn't working anymore."

"It is," Lily said, "trust. If it wasn't, you wouldn't have the choice to go back or not. You'd just be dead and stay here."

"That's not what I meant. I know it's working to keep me alive, but that's about all it's doing."

"I know what you meant," Lily said, nodding. "You didn't get what I meant. When you're here, you don't feel anything. You feel like you did when you first got here. You feel absolutely nothing. No pain, no heat, no cold, no anger or sadness. Nothing. No matter what, you can't feel anything. All those people you met with, they didn't feel anything, no matter how much they wanted to."

Nick sighed. "That sounds more appealing than you think it does."

"Only because you want to take the easy way out," Lily said. "You don't want to have to feel any pain, so you'd choose to never feel anything. But you don't know what that's like. I've never felt anything before. I never got the chance to. I don't know what it's like to stub my toe or be mad at my best friend or love someone. As bad as feeling can be, they're still feelings. They're how you know you're alive."

"I wish there was an easier way," Nick said.

"But there isn't. Nothing about life is easy, but it's all worth it."

Nick tried to sit up, but couldn't. It was becoming more of a struggle to keep his eyes open and the tightness in his chest was making him lightheaded. All he wanted was for the pain to go away and not come back.

"What happened to Gordon?" Nick asked suddenly.

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. Whatever you decided was going to happen. Nobody knows that but you."

"I didn't decide anything, I didn't have a chance to. He pushed me off the cliff and then I was in the water and then with Warrick so I forgot all about him."

"What do you think you decided?" Lily asked.

"I think I let him stay," Nick said softly. "I don't think I would have sent him to hell or wherever else he would have went. I don't know why...I guess it just doesn't make sense to punish someone who's already been through and lost so much."

Lily took Nick's left hand and held it in both of hers. "You fall into that category too ya know," she said. "Beating yourself up about everything that's happened in your past isn't going to do you any good Nick. You can't change it. For all you know, doing things differently could have resulted in the same outcome anyway."

Nick smiled slightly. "You're pretty smart for a kid," he said.

Lily smiled as well. "It comes with the job."

Nick looked down as he realized that he couldn't feel Lily's hands. "This is it, isn't it," he stated more than asked.

Lily nodded. "It's time. All you have to do is close your eyes and leave the rest to me. What you want to happen will happen. You'll wake up where you want to be and won't remember a thing about this, but you won't forget either."

Nick felt a sudden wave of fear take over his body. He was afraid of what he really wanted. It was hard to choose and was scary to think that he knew what he wanted but at the same time had no idea. Lily sensed the fear in the man lying on the grass in front of her and knew it was part of her job to put him at ease.

"See that line where the sky begins?" she said, pointing off in the distance. Nick turned his head and saw what she was talking about. The point where the green grass met the bright blue sky in a perfectly straight line. "No matter where you are, that line is there. No matter where you are or what's happening, you can always looks at that line and know that everything's going to be okay because if it wasn't, something that perfect and beautiful wouldn't be able to exist."

Nick stared at that line for a few more minutes before he finally closed his eyes, his head still to the side. Even though he couldn't feel it, he knew Lily had put his hand back down on the grass as she still knelt next to him. He felt his breathing becoming steady and deep, as if he were falling asleep. Just as he felt himself drifting off, there was a burst of pain in his shoulder that felt the same as when he had first been shot. He felt the ground beneath him breakaway and he was in free fall for a second or two before his back collided with a hard surface, his shoulder blades and head taking most of the shock from the impact.

He heard muffled noises echoing around him. Unsure exactly where he was, Nick kept his eyes closed and waited for his head to stop spinning. When it finally did, he slowly opened his eyes to see the dim lights on the ceiling above him. He vision focused, as did his hearing as he listened to Charlie DiMassa explain to his father why he killed all those men. Nick saw movement out of the corner of his left eye, so he turned his head slightly and saw Ray looking back at him with an expression of shock on his face.

Then it all came rushing back. Nick realized he had just been shot and that the owner of the restaurant they were in was about to die. They had no way out except through Charlie, who was armed and not very cooperative. Nick nodded ever so slightly to Ray as he began to reach for the gun he knew was only a few inches away from his hand. Ray's eyes locked with Nick's as he began to explain to Charlie that even by killing your father, it won't make anything different.

"How'd that make you feel?" Charlie asked of Ray letting his father die.

"Not the way you think it's gonna make you feel Charlie," Ray replied just as Nick's fingers found his gun.

"I just wanna see him die," Charlie said. "Shouldn't be much longer now."

"Let me tell ya something Charlie, even when the old man dies, you're not gonna stop being his son. You become the son of a ghost. The pain doesn't go away, the rage doesn't go away. So come on, put your gun down, walk out of here, be a man." Ray continued to stall Charlie as Nick got a grip on the gun and slowly began to pull it to his side.

"I will," Charlie replied. "Soon as he's dead."

"I can't let that happen Charlie. I'm gonna stand up now," Ray said as he looked over at Nick, who nodded to go ahead. Ray knew he could trust Nick, and it wasn't like he had much of a choice otherwise. "I'm standing up now Charlie. I'm gonna walk into the back, get some ice, and slow your father's heart rate."

As soon as Ray began moving towards the back, Charlie came out from hiding with the shot gun raised and pointed at Ray. As soon as he saw him, Nick sat up as much as he could, raised his right hand and fired seven shots right at Charlie's chest. He fell back against the wall behind him and slid down slowly to the floor, where he became limp and lifeless. Nick lowered his gun and fell back against the floor with a sigh, letting his eyes close as he did so.

Nick heard Ray return to Papa DiMassa and instruct him to breath slowly and keep the ice against his neck. Nick opened his eyes as he heard Ray scramble over to him and kneel on the bloody floor next to him.

"Are you okay?" Ray asked.

Nick nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You just got shot, so you're not fine," Ray said as he examined what he could of Nick's wounds. "I thought you were dead."

Nick laughed. "So did I."


	8. Scene Change

Ray quickly took off his jacket and folded it before pressing it against Nick's wounds. The younger man flinched in pain, but made no attempt to stop Ray from adding pressure to his bleeding shoulder.

"Thank you," Ray said as he sat on the floor next to his injured colleague.

Nick frowned. "For what?" he asked, his voice soft and strained.

"Saving my life," Ray replied. "Charlie was gonna shoot me and then probably his father as well, but you stopped him." Nick tried to shrug, but immediately stopped when it made the pain in his shoulder intensify. He opened his mouth to say something back, but Ray stopped him. "You don't have to be modest and say you were just doing your job, just relax. You're going to be okay Nick."

Nick smiled and shook his head slowly at Ray. He heard sirens echoing outside, followed by a loud crash as the doors were thrown open and a swarm of cops flooded into the restaurant, lead by Brass. He raced to the back where Nick and Ray were. He knelt on the floor next to Nick opposite Ray and put his hand on the side of the CSIs face, turning it towards him.

"Is he okay?" Brass asked Ray as he looked down at Nick.

Ray nodded. "He was shot, but he should be alright. He may need some surgery, but I don't think it's anything too serious."

Brass sighed heavily. "Thank God." He turned and looked over his shoulder at the body of Charlie DiMassa slumped up against the wall. "You got him?" he asked Ray.

Ray shook his head. "Nick did."

Brass looked down at Nick, who was returning the gaze upwards. "Better him than you,' Brass stated plainly.

Ray nodded in agreement as he readjusted the pressure he was putting on Nick's shoulder, making the Texan flinch again. "We need to get the both of them to a hospital right away."

"The ambulance should be here any second," Brass replied, still looking down at Nick. The CSI saw a mixture of fear and relief in Brass' eyes, and if he didn't know any better he would have said that there were a few tears starting to build up in the police captain's dark eyes. Nick was about to ask if Brass was okay but didn't get the chance before the older man was pushed aside by the paramedics that were suddenly filling the room to attend to Nick and Papa DiMassa.

The next thing Nick knew, he was waking up in the hospital feeling extremely groggy and as if there was a small animal gnawing away at his shoulder. Nick's eyes settled on Catherine, who was standing closest to him with tears in her eyes. As soon as he smiled at her she lunged forward and hugged him, careful to mind his wounded shoulder.

Nick smiled at his friends. "Ya'll better get outta here, before there's a crime scene to investigate," he said with one of his famous smiles.

"You scared the hell out of us Nicky," Catherine said.

"Nah, I'll be alright," Nick replied.

"Papa DiMassa made it through surgery," Ray announced as he walked into the room. "The doctors were able to remove the filter and stint the vein. He's gonna make it."

"The Jekyll case is...closed," Greg said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Nick nodded in agreement. "On to the next one, right?"

"Unfortunately, there's always a next one," Catherine said, shaking her head. "See ya soon," she said to Nick as she rubbed his good shoulder gently.

"Alright," Nick said with a small nod.

"I'll be back to give you a lift home," Sara said, making her way to follow Catherine and Greg out.

"No way," Nick replied as he slowly started to push the blankets of himself and sit up. "You're a terrible driver." When Ray turned to follow the rest, Nick stopped him. "Ray," he said.

"Yeah?" Ray answered, turning and walking back over to Nick's bed.

"That story you told about your father," Nick began, then paused momentarily. "Did you really just let him die like that?" he asked.

"I should have let the son of a bitch die," Ray said, getting choked up as he continued. "But I loved him. I took a knife, I opened his trachea, I saved his life. Then watched him die of lung cancer two years later." Ray shrugged sadly before holding up his fist for Nick to hit with his own. "Hey, feel better."

Nick smiled. "I play dead good, don't I?"

Ray returned the smile as he turned to leave. "You should have been an actor."

Nick laughed and was about to continue to get up so he could go to the bathroom but was instead met with the pleasant surprise of Brass walking into his room, smiling at Ray as they passed each other. Brass came to a stop at the foot of Nick's bed and for the first time since Nick had known the other man, Brass seemed to be at a loss for words. Nick noticed that Brass had the same look in his eyes when he had been kneeling next to Nick on the floor of the restaurant after he had been shot.

Nick was about to speak to break the ice, but Brass decided to beat him to it. "  
It took me getting shot myself to tell Grissom what a good friend he was to me. I've never been good with emotions in general, never mind putting them into words, but I finally did when he saved my life." Nick was confused at this odd beginning, but remained quiet and waited for Brass to continue. "I had always told myself that the people I care about know that I care, so I always shrugged it off. I had a lot of practice doing it to my wife and kid for so long."

Brass looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, obviously fighting back his emotions. "And then Warrick died, and I didn't sleep for weeks because the last thing I said to him was 'Don't ever forget how lucky you are' when really, he wasn't lucky at all. I had been so mad at him that instead of being grateful and happy that he was okay, I stayed stubborn, and I will regret that forever. But I refuse to let that happen with you. I've known you for so many years that I take for granted that you're always going to be around. I should have learned my lesson after Nigel Crane, but didn't. I didn't even wake up after Gordon buried you alive, I denied that you had ever been in real danger because the thought scared me to death. But seeing you tonight, lying on the floor and bleeding made me understand how devastated I'd be if something were to happen to you."

Nick wanted to offer a response, but he was taken off guard and had no idea what to say, but Brass still had plenty left. "I was only able to handle Warrick dying and Sara and Grissom leaving because I still had Catherine, Greg and you around, but you played the biggest part. I've always admired you because you're smart and you will never, ever give up on anything no matter what anyone else says or thinks. No matter what you're put through, you keep going. And after seeing you almost get killed, again, I couldn't let myself keep pretending there was no threat. I just wanted you to know because you're like a son to me."

Nick couldn't help but smile at Brass' rare but very sincere showing of emotion towards him. "I really appreciate that man," Nick said. "It means a lot coming from you."

Brass laughed. "I bet it does. I've never been one to be good with words, that was always Grissom's forte. But who knows," he said with a shrug. "You gotta start somewhere I guess."

* * *

So sorry for the lag time between updates. I had to go out of town last minute and forgot to take my computer with me.

I chose to add Brass in and play up a reaction from him because I think him and Nick have a stronger relationship than what we get to see in the show. Also, since it's not yet known what exactly is going to happen to Ray, even though he survives, I'm not going to use the storyline of Haskell stabbing him. This story is centered around Nick and how he reacts to what happens to him, so I'm focusing on that aspect of it.

Thanks for reading and the reviews! More soon!


	9. We Don't Have To Look Back Now

Nick couldn't have gotten out of the hospital fast enough. Instead of making Sara come back and drive him home, he was able to weasel his way out early and returned to his house by means of Hodges and Wendy bringing him back after they had kindly brought him a pizza. After constant questioning and triple promises made on Nick's part, the two lab rats left him alone under the conditions that he call someone if he needed anything at all. He couldn't help but smile at his friends worrying about him so much. He knew his situation had been serious, but the worst was far over and he was going to be completely fine from here on out. Sore and tired, but fine.

For the first time in longer than Nick could remember, he filled the tub in his bathroom and sank into the hot water after undressing, which was only slightly complicated. The hot water felt amazing on his stiff muscles and was really the only way he could bathe due to his wounded shoulder, which was still securely bandaged. He didn't mind in the least at taking a bath because of how relaxing and calm it made him feel. He sat there contently until the water turned lukewarm and was on its way to getting cold. He pulled the plug out and let the water drain as he stood and got out of the tub, skillfully wrapping a towel around his waist with one hand. He headed into the bedroom and decided on a pair of black boxers and gray sweatpants as being sufficient enough for clothing. He didn't want to attempt to put a shirt on at the time, so he didn't bother.

After dressing, Nick grabbed an iced tea from the fridge and headed out onto his back porch. The sun was just beginning to come up from seemingly nowhere past the vast desert that extended for as far as he could see. He preferred this view of Vegas over the bright lights because it was more peaceful and beautiful to look at at all hours of the day. He had just settled down in one of the hammock chairs he had suspended from the ceiling when he heard a knock at his front door. In lieu of getting up, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit the speed dial for the number of the person he knew without a doubt to be standing on the other side of the door.

"Hello?"

"Just come in," Nick replied. "I'm out back."

He hung up without waiting for a reply on the other end because he knew there wasn't going to be one. He heard his front door open and close, followed by the nearing footsteps that made their way through the back door and right next to him. He looked up and smiled at his visitor, extending his good arm to offer his iced tea to his guest.

"How did you know it was me?" Catherine asked, shaking her head to the iced tea.

"Who else would it be?" Nick replied. "I wasn't offering this to you, I was asking you to open it for me," he said. Catherine smiled as she took the bottle from Nick and opened it, handing it back to him. "Thank you," he said with a smile. "So what brings you here?"

Catherine sighed as she sank into the chair next to Nick. "There was no way I was gonna get any sleep tonight," she replied.

"Vartann working?" Nick asked innocently.

Catherine cocked her eyebrow at him. "As a matter of fact, he is. But even if he wasn't, I would want to be here with you. After everything we've all been through, nothing can put me at ease unless I'm actually with at least one of you guys. I wouldn't be able to relax unless I could see with my own two eyes that you're okay."

Nick took a sip of his drink before replying. "It just sucks that it had to come to this."

"To what?"

Nick shrugged the best that he could. "To me having to kill him."

Catherine nodded. "You did what you had to do Nicky. I've done it, Ray's done it. It doesn't make it any easier, but you did the right thing."

"I know. It's not that I killed him, it's who I killed I guess. I don't know, I just feel different but it's not because of that. I didn't have a choice, ya know? And after Ray killed that Ellis guy last year, he told me he felt guilty because he didn't feel guilty about killing him."

"Is that how you feel?" Catherine asked.

Nick shook his head slowly. "No. After Warrick died, what happened consumed my every thought and action. I couldn't stop replaying over and over again McKean laying on the ground telling me to shoot him. I wanted to kill him so bad, and when I didn't, I regretted it every damn day. I thought he deserved to die after what he did to Warrick, no matter what would have happened to me because of it. What happened to Warrick had a hold on me for so long and I couldn't shake it. But now, I feel...better. I don't know how else to describe it. I feel completely different, and it hit me as soon as I woke up. I didn't feel the burden of thinking I somehow betrayed Warrick by not killing McKean because I killed someone and had no other choice. McKean deserved to die as much as Jekyll, but I had a choice with McKean, and now I know I made the right one. I know it sounds bad that I feel good for killing someone, but it's somewhat true."

"I understand," Catherine replied as she put her hand on Nick's gently. "When I killed Syd Goggle, I only felt a brief moment of guilt for it. If I hadn't, he would have seriously injured or even killed Grissom. It was an instinct more than a decision. If you hadn't have killed Jekyll, he would have killed his father, Ray, and you."

Nick nodded. "And killing McKean wouldn't have saved Warrick."

"That's the hardest part," Catherine said, tears welling up in her eyes. "Nothing could have saved Warrick. We all did everything we could for him."

Nick took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So," he began, deciding to change the subject, "is this thing with Vartann for real?"

Catherine smiled. "It is so far. It's just so easy to be around him. We have so much in common and even though we basically work together it's easy to forget about work and everything else because both of us want to get away from it, ya know?"

Nick nodded. "I'm glad you're happy. He's one of the few guys I would deam worthy of dating you. Nice choice."

Catherine laughed. "I appreciate your approval. I was worried about how you would react."

Nick frowned slightly. "Why? Did you think I was going to try and kick his ass or something?"

"No," Catherine said with a small laugh. "I was just worried about how you'd take it considering how things had been with Warrick and I. I know we never officially dated or anything, but feelings were always there and I know you knew that, everyone knew that."

"He would want you to be happy," Nick replied simply. "As much as I'd love for him to be here and for you two to be together, Vartann's just gonna have to be good enough. I think he passes."

Catherine smiled widely. "Thank you Nicky," she said, leaning across and kissing him on the cheek. "It's so good to know that even though we've lost our fair share of people that meant a lot to us, that we still have plenty left, and always will."

Nick nodded in agreement. Just as he was about to add to Catherine's comment, they both heard Nick's front door open and close, followed by footsteps and muffled voices coming from inside the house. Nick and Catherine locked eyes and were both about to panic, but instead smiled after they heard the follow exchange.

"Where the hell is he?"

"I don't know, we don't have a tracker on him."

"I told you we should have done that a long time ago."

"You simply can't put a tracking device in a human, it's unconstitutional."

"Not to mention Nick would probably rip it out."

The voices of Sara, Greg, Brass and Ray finally made their way to the back of the house, where they found Nick and Catherine still sitting on the deck. They filed through the door one by one and found seats for themselves on the deck, creating a small circle amongst themselves.

"How are you doing Nick?" Ray asked after they had all settled down.

Nick nodded. "Good. Nothing more than sore and tired."

"You don't have a shirt on," Greg commented.

"Yes, I know that," Nick replied, unable to hold back a smile.

Greg held up his hands. "I'm just checking. Ya never know what those pain meds can do."

Catherine shook her head slowly. "So what brings you all here?"

"The same thing that brought you," Brass responded with a tilt of his head aimed at Nick. "Gotta make sure the little guy's okay."

"The lab gets boring rather quickly without you running around," Sara added. "Hodges tormenting Henry and Archie gets old pretty fast when there's no one to help Greg torture Hodges."

Nick laughed and nodded in agreement. "It was always easier to do with Grissom around. Hodges would do whatever it took to impress him, no matter how stupid it made him look. I looked forward to him making a fool of himself, hell I still do."

"I knew from the moment I met that man that he was a character," Ray said.

"We all did," Brass agreed. "Especially Warrick."

Everyone smiled somewhat sadly, and they all thought a silence was about to take over, until Nick opted to speak. "Hodges was the perfect lab rat to pick on after Greggo became a CSI," he said with a laugh. "He was so defensive and never missed an opportunity to make fun of me or Warrick, mostly because he knew we'd return the favor."

"You two could be real pains in the ass sometimes," Greg said. "I swear Grissom put you two together on cases just to punish me. You two coming into my lab everyday felt like an ambush."

"We weren't that bad," Nick retorted with a smile.

"I didn't even know Warrick, but knowing what I do about you pushes me to side with Greg on this one," Ray said with a laugh. "I would have liked to have met him," he added.

"He was a great guy," Catherine replied.

Nick nodded in agreement. "You would have really liked him. He would have pissed you off to no end, but you wouldn't have been able to help but to like him. He was stubborn and hot headed, but so are all of us. Warrick was always there when you needed him, no matter what. And he never gave up on anything."

"Sounds a lot like you Nick," Ray said, still smiling.

"They're more alike than that," Brass said with a chuckle. "Collectively, they're the most competitive guys I have ever met. They would bet on anything and everything and then argue for the next month about who won until they found something else to argue about."

"They made each other work harder everyday," Sara said.

"We all do," Nick said, "it's just Warrick knew how to do it in a way that made me want to tackle him on a daily basis."

"Yeah, like you were an angel towards him," Catherine retorted. "Neither one of you let each other get away with anything, no matter how small."

"You guys say all this like it's a bad thing," Nick said with a laugh.

"No no," Brass replied. "Annoying and ridiculous, yes, but not bad."

"Sounds like a good thing to me," Ray said. "It shows how close you all are as a team, and I couldn't be happier to be a part of it."

"We're glad to have you on board," Catherine said, with a nod from everyone else in agreement.

The sun was now completely visible above the desert landscape, casting a calming red glow on everything within its reach. The red-orange of the sky contrasted with brownish red of the land that wasn't as bright as the sky, but still beautiful to look at. Everyone on the porch had turned their attention to the gorgeous site, taking in the warmth that the view was emanating.

"Wow," Catherine breathed, and she received a silent agreement from everyone else.

"Makes you forget about all that other bad stuff that's happened," Greg said.

Nick felt a strange feeling come over him, and before without realizing it he began speaking. "That line, where the sky begins, is always there. No matter what. No matter where you are or what's happening to you, it's always there. The fact that something that amazing is everywhere proves that everything really will be okay."

Everyone turned their attention from the skyline to Nick, both out of surprise and pure adoration for what he had just said.

"Why?" Catherine asked, posing the question everyone else wanted to know.

Nick smiled and shrugged slightly. "Because if it wasn't, something that perfect and beautiful wouldn't be able to exist."

THE END

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Thank you to everyone who read and especially to those who reviewed. I'm sorry it took so long to get this last chapter up; I had to shuffle my priorities around and this unfortunately got put on the back burner. Thanks again and I hope you enjoyed!


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